The oxygen delivery infrastructure is crumbling under pressure in Los Angeles and other covid hot spots, jeopardizing patients’ access to precious air and limiting hospital turnover.
Recent deaths on a small Native American reservation in Montana have underlined the heightened risks for Indigenous youths and how suicide prevention programs are struggling to operate during the pandemic.
After missteps in Washington, each state and county is left to juggle where to send vaccines first and how to get them to each nursing home, hospital local health department and even school.
Hospitals across the country are struggling as staffers get infected with the coronavirus. It’s especially tough for small, rural hospitals, where even one doctor out sick can upend patient capacity.
Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain. Meanwhile, mask-wearing and other pandemic prevention measures remain spotty in rural counties.
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.
Crooked Media’s “America Dissected” explores the rural health crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Podcast guest KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal said: “I expect we’ll see a lot more rural hospital failures.”
Crooked Media’s “America Dissected” explores the rural health crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Podcast guest KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal said: “I expect we’ll see a lot more rural hospital failures.”
In Fort Scott, Kansas, the Community Health Center’s big green-and-white sign replaced Mercy Hospital’s name on the front of the town’s massive medical building. In the final chapter of Season One: “No Mercy,” we have an appointment to see what’s inside.
Frequently employed by staffing agencies based in other states, nurses and other healthcare professionals can find themselves working through crisis without advocates or adequate safety equipment.